Category: Joe Gresh

Mini Motor Madness

There is a universe of product testers who thrive on YouTube. The oddest bit of kit has at least three reviews and the information is almost always valuable. I never buy anything without checking YouTube first. I’ve had my eye on these little motorized bicycle kits for years and after watching several videos showing the kits as fairly good quality I finally pulled the trigger.

The amount of equipment you get for $108 and free shipping from Amazon is amazing. The kit is complete, no need to go to the hardware store for an extra widget or a bolt. Some of the U-Tubers replaced the nuts and bolts with higher spec stuff but it’s not necessary.

The kit comes with a zillion parts bagged by function. On the carburetor, behind the idle screw old school motorcyclists will recognize the tickler, a plunger device that drowns the carb float causing fuel to spill into the engine. The function of the tickler is to enrich the fuel/air ratio for cold starting. Kind of like a choke except more flammable.

Amazon has pages and pages of bicycle motors and most of them look like the one I bought. Prices range from $90 to $200 for what looks like the same exact thing. There are 50cc kits and 80cc kits so I opted for the 80cc. YouTubers will tell you the 80cc engine measures out to around 60cc, which is a good thing because the engine fins don’t look large enough to cool a bigger bore. You can also buy 4-stroke kits but then you’d be no friend of mine. The main reason I sprung for this one was because it came with a chrome exhaust pipe.

The transmission is a one speed, manual clutch set up and you’ll get the throttle, throttle cable with a matching grip for the left side. A clutch lever with a push button latch allows you to disengage and lock the clutch for pedaling the bike as normal. Included on the throttle housing is a kill button that plugs into the ignition coil. Wiring couldn’t be easier as there are only two wires and I’m guessing it doesn’t matter how they connect.

The hokiest part of the conversion is attaching the rear sprocket. Your average bicycle has no way to connect a rear sprocket so you have to use two rubber discs, three steel plates and the sprocket to sandwich the spokes. This seems like a bad idea from many angles but YouTubers say it works ok. Centering the sprocket is critical along with adjusting run-out. A flimsy looking chain idler pulley is included to keep the included chain from sawing through the lower frame rail but again, the Tubers say it ends up working well. Careful adjustment of the motor in the frame may eliminate the need for an idler. That’s what I’ll be shooting for.

When I say complete I mean complete. You’ll get a chain guard, a petcock, a sparkplug and even fuel hose. Unless you want upgraded components there is really nothing else to buy.

The kit comes with a cool teardrop gas tank that bolts to the top frame tube. The tank comes glossy black and would look great sitting atop an 80 cubic-inch Indian flathead drag bike. Handwrite “The Jewel” on the side of the tank in that yellow junkyard paint and you will win all the bike nights.

The sheer quantity of parts for $108 makes me happy (a fringed T-shirt for a Harley costs $100). For me, it almost doesn’t matter it the thing works or not. I like looking at all the new pieces. My next step is to find an older, one speed, balloon-tired 26-inch bicycle for a host. One with curving frame tubes and chrome fenders. I’ll let you know when I find it and I’ll do a story on the install and road test of the little motor.

Indiana Jones: Part I

Yes, it really was like that. Somewhere along the Silk Road (the actual Silk Road) in China. I parked my RX3 when I saw the double rainbow, thinking someday I might use the shot in a blog about this adventure.

Almost 40 years ago, I saw my first Indiana Jones movie and it affected me profoundly.  I started traveling the world stumbling upon lost empires. Things that have been swallowed by time, as they say.  My motorcycle ride through Colombia had some of that.  The Baja adventures have a bit of it, too.  But none of the rides had more of an Indiana Jones flavor than did the ride across China.  That ride was three years ago this month, and I still think about it every day.  There were several things we saw in China that would have been right at home in an Indiana Jones movie.  One was Liqian.   I can best tell you about it with an excerpt from Riding China, the story of the ride with Joe Gresh across the Ancient Kingdom.

Gobi Gresh, aka Arjiu, stopping to smell the sunflowers in China.

The ride in the morning was just like yesterday. We rode the Silk Road at high speed, making great time in magnificent weather. I knew we were going to Wuwei (you could have a lot of fun with that name; it’s pronounced “woo wee”), but that was really all I knew about that day as we started out that morning. Boy, would this day ever be an interesting one!

It was to be a very full day, and Wuwei would be another one of those cities of several million people that seem to pop up in China every 50 to 100 miles. It was a huge city I had never heard of. China is an amazing place, and I was going to learn today it is more amazing than I could have imagined, and for a reason I would have never guessed. I’ve mentioned Indiana Jones movies a lot in this book. Today, we came upon something that could easily be…well, read on. This is going to be good.

After riding for a couple of hours, we left the freeway and entered a city called Yongchang. It seemed to be pretty much a regular Chinese city until we stopped. I needed to find a bathroom and Wong helped me. Wong is a big, imposing guy. He’s a corrections officer supervisor in Xi’an. He has a friendly look, but he can turn that off in a New York minute and become an extremely imposing figure. I saw him do that once on this trip, and I’ll tell you about that episode when we get to it.

Corrections Officer Supervisor Wong. He looks like a mischievous guy. This guy’s command presence was amazing. I saw him stop a car just by looking at it. Here, he’s enjoying the attention in Yongchang.

Anyway, I followed Wong through a couple of alleys and businesses until we came to an empty restaurant (it was mid-morning, and it had no customers). Wong spoke to the lady there, she nodded her head and smiled at me, and pointed to the bathroom. When I rejoined the guys back on the street, several women at a tailor shop (we had coincidentally stopped in front of a tailor shop) were fussing over Wong. He needed a button sewn on his jacket and it was obvious they were flirting with him. Wong seemed to be enjoying it. Like I said, Wong is a big guy, and I guess you could say he’s good looking. I think the women who were sewing his button on were thinking the same thing.

Beautiful young Chinese ladies. Mostly Chinese, anyway.  The one on the left is entering my phone number in her contacts list.

Three teenage girls approached us and wanted to know about our bikes. Like many young Chinese, they spoke English (in China, you learn English as a second language in grade school; it is a strong advantage in Chinese society if you can speak English well). They wanted to practice with us. It was the routine stuff (“how are you?” “hello,” and things like that) until one of the teenaged girls looked directly at me and asked, “Can I have your phone number?” Gresh and I both had a good laugh over that. I actually gave her my phone number and she carefully entered it into her phone (and no, she hasn’t called me yet).

I was enjoying all of this immensely, taking photos of the girls, the seamstresses flirting with Wong, and the rest of China all around me. There was something different about one of those teenage girls. I couldn’t quite recognize what it was, but to me she definitely looked, well, different.

Yongchang statues. They don’t look as Chinese as you might think they should. There’s a reason for that.

It was at about that time that Sean approached me and said, “Dajiu, do you see those three statues over there?” He pointed to three tall statues that faced us, perhaps 300 yards away. I nodded yes. “If you look at their faces, you will see that they have Roman features.” Truth be told, I couldn’t really see it in the statues because they were too far away, but I grabbed a photo and later, on my computer, I could see something different. But before I looked at the photo, it all clicked for me. That’s what had my attention with that girl. We were literally in the middle of China and she didn’t look as Chinese as her two friends. She looked different.

All right, my friends, I need to go tangential here for a minute or two and share this story with you. Hang on, because this is real Indiana Jones stuff. No, scratch that. I’ve never seen an Indiana Jones movie with a story line this good (and I’ve seen all of them).

More than 2,000 years ago, before the birth of Christ, the two most powerful empires on the planet were the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty. These two superpowers of their time enjoyed a brisk trade relationship along the Silk Road. Yep, the very same trail we had been riding for the last few days. Between them (in what became Iran and its surrounding regions) lay a smaller empire called Parthia. For reasons only the Romans understood, Rome thought it would be a good idea to attack Parthia. They sent several Roman Legions to war (and to put this in perspective, a Roman Legion consisted of about 5,000 men). To everyone’s surprise (including, I would imagine, the Romans), the Parthians kicked Rome’s butt.

Wow, imagine that. Rome, defeated on the field of battle by the much smaller Parthian Empire. To put it mildly, things did not quite go the way the Romans thought they would.

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All of this severely disrupted trade between the Han Dynasty and the Romans, and nobody liked that. “Why the hell did you do that?” the Han Dynasty asked Rome. “We had a good thing going and you screwed it up.”  At least that’s what I’m guessing the conversation went like.  You get the idea.

Cooler minds prevailed and the Romans  realized, yeah, that was a dumb move.  The Romans told the Parthians, hey, it’s over, let’s be friends again. The war ended, the Chinese were happy, the Romans were happy, the Parthians were happy, and trade resumed. All’s well that ends well.

Well, sort of. There was still that matter of those pesky Roman legions that had invaded Parthia. They didn’t come back from that war, and for two thousand years, no one knew what happened to them. The Romans probably assumed their Legionnaires had all been slaughtered.  No one knew until an Australian dude and a Chinese guy, both University archeologist types (starting to sound a little like Indiana Jones yet?) put a theory together in 1957. Hmmm, maybe those Romans had not been killed after all.

The Parthians, being bright enough to defeat the Romans, were not about to let the Legionnaires go home and perhaps attack them again in some future war. They didn’t want to kill the Romans, either. I guess they were kinder, gentler Parthians.  Here’s where those two Aussie and Chinese archeologists enter the picture. They hypothesized that the Parthians told the errant Legionnaires, “Look, we don’t want to kill all you guys, but there’s no way we’re going to let you go back to Rome. And there’s no room for you here, either. Your only option is to keep heading east. Go to China. Maybe you crazy warmongering Italians will find nice Chinese girls and settle down.”   With that, and as one might imagine, a hearty arrivederci, the Romans continued their eastward march straight into the middle of China.

And folks, the prevailing wisdom today is that is exactly what happened (although the prevailing wisdom evidently hasn’t prevailed very far, as I had never heard the story until that morning in Yongchang). In fact, prior to this theory surfacing, folks wondered why the Chinese referred to the area around Yongchang as Liqian. That’s not a Chinese word, and it’s unlike the name of any other Chinese town.  The folks who know about these things tell me it is an unusual word in the Chinese language.

Liqian is  pronounced “Lee Chee On.”

Get it yet?

Lee Chee On? Liqian?

Doesn’t it sound like “legion?” As in Roman legion?

A Chinese man in Liqian. This guy could be the Marlboro Man for a Chinese cigarette company!

I found all of this fascinating. I saw more than a few people around the Liqian area that had a distinct western appearance, and they all consented to my taking their photos when I asked. They recognize just how special their story is. The Chinese government is taking note of this area, too. They are developing a large theme park just outside of Yongchang with a Roman motif. We visited that theme park, and while we were there, Sergeant Zuo gave a book to me (printed in both English and Chinese) about the place. It is one of the two books I brought back from China, and that book is now one of my most prized possessions.

Imagine that:  Roman legions, resettled in the middle of China, in a town called Liqian.  And I rode there.  On an RX3.

Watch for our next Indiana Jones episode in China.  It’s about the lost Buddhist grottos at Mo Gao in the Gobi Desert.  There’s more good stuff coming your way.  Stay tuned!

Want to read more about the ride across China?  Pick up a copy of Riding China!

Motorcyclist magazine: What happened?

A few weeks ago, blogmeister Joe Gresh vented on Bonnier and Motorcyclist magazine.  It was a great piece of writing (not a surprise, seeing as it was coming from Gresh) and it garnered more than a few comments.

I thought that Motorcyclist had already gone belly up.   I used to subscribe, and I thought my subscription had already ended, so I was more than a little surprised when I received the final issue in the mail last week.   We checked our records and whaddaya know, we had renewed for a year, so now I’m annoyed that I’m apparently going to get stiffed for the last two issues (Motorcyclist didn’t say anything about reimbursing folks like me who are owed another issue or two).   I guess the reason I was surprised was that with Motorcyclist’s recently-adopted quarterly print schedule, it had been so long since I received the last issue I assumed the subscription had already expired.  Truth be told, the last few issues of Motorcyclist were terrible, I hadn’t read most of their articles after glancing at them initially, and I’m not missing Motorcyclist at all.  It had become a collection of snowflake fluff.

Anyway, I looked through the last issue (the one I received last week) to see if they were making this a special issue (you know, because it was the last).  Nope, not really.  There was a brief article (less than a page) near the beginning that explained this was the last issue and it stated what I believe to be not more than a couple of half-assed excuses:  The motorcycle industry has been in a permanent funk since the recession and nobody with any brains advertises in print media.  It’s a digital world, Motorcyclist said, and motorcycling (as an interest, an endeavor, and an industry) is on life support (my words, but that’s essentially the Motorcyclist message).   My take?  These guys are good at making excuses.  They’re right up there with that world-class, place-the-blame-anywhere-but-on-me hack who wrote What Happened.  Blame it on the Russians, I guess.

The rest of the articles in the final Motorcyclist made no mention that this was the last issue, so my take on the whole affair is that it was a decision made suddenly.   It’s a pity, as Motorcyclist used to be good.   Really good.  They had superb writing (including a regular column by a guy named Joe Gresh).   But they failed to adapt.  The market was changing and the coffee-table format and fluffy content Motorcyclist switched to a few years ago missed the mark by a mile.  To their credit, they realized they had a problem, but their diagnosis and prescribed course of treatment was wrong.  It’s that old joke:  What do you call the student who graduates at the bottom of their medical school class?  The answer, of course, is Doctor.  Just having the title, though, doesn’t mean you know the right answers.

In the final analysis, I don’t buy what Motorcyclist said for the most obvious of reasons:  There are good motorcycle magazines out there that are thriving.  They’ve done a far better job of picking the right content, format, and market niche, and they are serving it well.  One is Motorcycle Classics, with a focus on classic motorcycles.  Another is RoadRUNNER, with a focus on touring.   Rider may be in that category, too (I haven’t looked at them lately).   And there’s Buzz Kanter’s American Iron magazine, with a focus on custom and vintage mostly-made-in-America motorcycles.   I believe there are several things that inoculate these publications to the double whammies of a depressed motorcycle market and the brave new digital world.  The first is that each is led by passionate riders.   Think Landon Hall at Motorcycle Classics, the Neuhausers at RoadRUNNER, and Buzz Kanter at AIM.  These are folks who ride, who tour, who love motorcycles, and who live in our world (and that comes across in their magazines).  The second huge factor is that each of these magazines found a niche that doesn’t need to scoop the competition.   If you’re in the printed magazine business and you need to be the first to publish breaking news, you’ll never beat the Internet.  Nope, each of these magazines went a different route.  Vintage bikes aren’t bold new graphics or the latest race results (let the Internet break that kind of baloney).   Touring is not breaking news and that’s why RoadRUNNER does well.  And custom, or vintage, Harleys and Indians…well, that’s the same deal:  American Iron has what is essentially a timeless topic.  And then there’s one last factor, I think, and it is that each of these magazines has superior editorial direction.  The articles are profoundly interesting, well-written, error-free, and skillfully presented.  Landon, Florian, and Steve are gifted editors who take their life’s work seriously, and if you didn’t know, they are the editors of Motorcycle Classics, RoadRUNNER, and American Iron.

Nope, the demise of Motorcyclist is unfortunate, but it’s of their own doing. Cream always rises to the top, flawed strategies ultimately fail, and the Russians had nothing to do with it.

Motorcycle Entertainment: Monkee-Moto!

Television in the mid-1960s was nothing if not predictable. As we watched the shadows on the wall, behind us society was undergoing dramatic change. The old ways were failing, cracks formed in the smooth, comforting facade. Bit by bit it was revealed that whoever was in charge was not being entirely truthful. One of the first television shows to reflect our growing national cynicism was The Monkees: Four longhaired kids who respected neither the camera nor the situation comedy process. The Monkees broke the fourth wall so many times you felt like you were on set with them.

My favorite Monkee episode (because of the motorcycles) opens with Micky Dolenz singing Going Down. Micky was the drummer and the best singer in the band and he nails Going Down’s proto-rap feel. From there, the show falls apart beautifully with motorcycles, a chalkboard Hog reference, dust and pretty girls beating up The Monkees.

Amid typical Monkee chaos in walks The Black Angels biker gang featuring a leader who just wants to destroy somebody. 50 years ago the cliché biker image was so embedded in our culture that all it took was a black jacket to signify a hoodlum. Harley Davidson has mined that image right up to today, creating an entire sub-set of true believers. The rest of us modern motorcyclists with our high-tech, high-vis monkey suits look more like school crossing guards.

The monkees form their own biker gang called The Chickens and during a race between the bad guys more cinema magic is revealed. There is a plot to all this but it’s mostly there to keep the boys from walking off the set. At the end of the show peace and love is restored, Triumphs and Harleys get along together and you’re filled with hope for the future.

This was situation comedy television unlike any that came before. It was random. It exposed the fakery. Jack Benny’s old TV show was The Monkees spirit guide. After 2 years the Monkees show was cancelled. The Monkees became a real band and had many hits written and preformed by themselves. Which just goes to show you that living a lie sometimes leads to success.

Tested to Destruction: Rossi Boots

We’re starting a new feature here on ExhaustNotes.us called Tested To Destruction. TTD will be a life-cycle product test from purchase to the dumpster. You’ll not find so complete a product test anywhere else on the Internet, go ahead and look around. Due to the long test periods involved some of the products may be discontinued and no longer available. There’s not a lot we can do about that. One other note: By definition we are testing to destruction so all products will fail in the end. It happens to the best. Nothing lasts forever.

I first became aware of Rossi boots in Australia. Nearly every tradesman wore the things and the ones I spoke to raved about the classic, made in Australia boot. I was on extended leave in the outback and needed a tough boot for hiking and camping so I bought a pair of Rossi Enduras. The Rossies aren’t cheap (like me) but I splurged and who doesn’t love having boots named after the greatest modern-era motorcycle road racer?

The Rossies were comfortable from Day One. No blisters or slipping, soft and flexible with pull tabs and elastic sides to make installation a breeze. No wonder the Tradies wore them. That first pair lasted through Australia and back in the States through several boat rewires.

In my real job I worked in very oily conditions. The bilge of a commercial fishing boat is full of slimy gunk. Unlike every other boot or canvas shoe I have purchased, the Rossi soles stayed firmly attached to the uppers. The Rossies easily outlasted four pairs of regular boots.

One thing that disintegrates after a couple years is the rubber liner inside the bottom of the boot. This liner is supremely comfortable when new and I guess you can replace it with another liner. This has happened with both pairs I’ve owned. When mine fell apart I pulled out the pieces and kept on pouring concrete. The boot is still comfy without the liner, just less so.

The boots in the photo are my second pair of Rossies and they have gone through the wringer on countless construction jobs. Imagine: 2 pairs of boots for over 5 years of hard use. I used to go through work boots every 6 to 9 months. My second pair, like the first, never came apart and I’m retiring them only because they look so bad people keep offering me money for a cup of coffee.

I wear these boots when riding motorcycles, dirt or street. The comfort is great and being able to easily slip them off on hot rides is so nice. I know slip-on boots may fly loose in a crash situation so save your breath: I make my gear choices for me. You make your gear choices for you. Anyway, Flat Earthers and Vaccine Deniers tell me it’s safer to be thrown clear of the boot in an accident.

You can buy Rossi boots online but make sure to get the ones made in Adelaide, Australia. They’re not very stylish and you can expect to pay a lot but it’s like you’re getting four pairs of boots for the price of one. There are several boots that look the same as Rossies but are lower quality. Shop wisely.

Steve’s ’82 Seca…

As you may know, Joe Gresh started a Facebook group he called COMA.  That’s an acronym for Crappy Old Motorcycle Association, and the intent is for folks to post photos of old and crappy motorcycles.  That’s all fine and dandy, but it presents me with a dilemma:  What do you do with photos of a motorcycle that’s old but most definitely not crappy?

Behold: The 1982 Yamaha Seca. This particular motorcycle is nearly 40 years old, and it’s just barely broken in. Sweet!

That surely is how anyone would describe Steve Seidner’s 1982 Yamaha Seca.  When Steve bought it almost a year ago, it had a scant 1700 miles and change on the clock.   I tried to buy it from Steve when he bought it, but it was no dice.  Steve knows what he has:  A motorcycle manufactured when Ronald Reagan resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a nearly-40-year-old motorcycle in absolutely pristine condition.  This is what I would call a New Old Stock motorcycle.  It’s not been restored, and it’s essentially in as new condition.

The cockpit. Tach, speedo, and more.  Check the odo reading.  I’m the guy who bumped it over 1800 miles. Sweet!

Okay, I can take no for an answer.   Steve didn’t want to sell, and sometimes you have to just suck it up and move on.  But Steve wasn’t riding the thing, and a slippery 4-cylinder, fire engine red, 550cc motorcycle is a machine that cries out for abuse in the San Gabriel Mountains.  I explained all of this to Steve, I threatened to expose some of his darkest secrets on the ExNotes blog, and a couple of days go, Steve gave me the keys to the kingdom.   The kingdom being, of course, one 1982 Yamaha Seca with just over 1700 miles on the odometer.

Starboard. That means the right side. Of course, on this bike there really is no wrong side.

Well, the odo now reads over 1800 miles.  Who done that?  Me?  Guilty as charged.  It was a blast.  I grabbed a few photos and I’ll share them with you here.   I’m doing a more in depth road report on the Seca that will be in print somewhere down the road, and you’ll have to read that to get the full story.  For now, enjoy these teasers.

The radical Left. As in the left side of a motorcycle that, in 1982, was a radical departure from the norm. This bike is beautiful.

So what was it like riding this blast from the past?  Truth be told, it could have been a modern motorcycle.   It handled flawlessly, it made good power, and it has good brakes.  I loved it.  I had the San Gabriels all to myself when I was up there on Steve’s Seca.  It was a glorious day.

Yeah, this is a tough job. If not me, who would do this sort of thing?

There are some things on the Seca that were cutting edge in ’82, and others that we might regard as quaint today.  But it all worked.  A single disk up front and a drum (gasp!) in the rear (nobody told that drum brake it wasn’t supposed to work as well as it did).  And what was the state of the art in 82…a four-cylinder engine with four carbs and a fancy cross induction system that was supposed to increase combustion chamber swirl for more power.   I guess it worked, because the bike felt fantastic.   It matched its looks, which are, well, fantastic.

Cast aluminum wheels, and a single disk up front…
And a drum in the rear. It worked just fine.
Bright, bright red, silver and black accents, and a state of the art 550 YICS engine. More on that YICS business later…

The view from the saddle was glorious, the Seca had a marvelous ExhaustNote (I love that word), and I was in my element up in the San Gabriels.  I enjoyed the ride tremendously.

The view from Command Central. If it looks like it was a great day for a motorcycle ride, I’ll let you in on a little secret: They’re all great days!

It’s not often you see low-mileage, 4-decade-old-bike in as new condition. Steve’s Seca takes that description up a notch.  How about a bike that has the original owner’s manual and tool kit?

The original tool kit. The original owner’s manual. It doesn’t get any better than this. A Yamaha time capsule, circa 1982.

When I returned to the CSC plant, Steve wanted to know all about the ride and how the bike felt.  “It started missing a bit at around 110 mph,” I said, and Steve just smiled.   He knew.  I never took the Seca above 55 mph, partly because all my riding was in the San Gabriel’s tight twisties, and partly out of respect (both for the bike and for the man who allowed me to experience it).  Good times.

The Man, The Machine, the Legend…Steve Seidner, the CSC Founder and CEO, and the Seca’s owner. Steve, thanks very much!

You know, it really is amazing how much technology has changed in the last 40 years.  To be perfectly honest, the Seca’s performance below 55 mph (which is the only region I rode it in) was good, but it was not too much different than my trusty 250cc RX3, and at low speeds, I think the RX3 actually has a bit more grunt.  That’s understandable, I suppose, as the RX3 is a single and the Seca is a four.  I imagine the Seca has more top end and probably a bit more of a rush accelerating at freeway speeds, but the time-capsule Seca ride reminded me just how good a motorcycle the RX3 is.  If you want to buy a Seca like the one featured in this blog from Steve, you’re out of luck (believe me, I tried).  If you want to buy a new RX3, though, I hear Steve can help you make that dream come true!

Steve has some cool toys.  Some time ago he let me swing a leg over his Norton Commando for a similar ride.  You can read that story here.  Steve has a pretty cool mid-60’s Mopar, too.  I’m still working on getting the keys to that one.

That’s it for now, folks.  I’ve got some more photos to process for another blog in a day or two on yet another toy, one that is a cool 101 years old.  Stay tuned!

Adios, my friends.  Stay tuned for another Prancing Pony tale!

Want to read more Dream Bike stories?  Clickety clack right here!

Read our story on Steve’s Seca in Motorcycle Classics!

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My RX3 and its campaign ribbons…

I thought it might make for a nice change of pace if I actually posted something about motorcycles on this here motorcycle blog, so yesterday I fired up my faithful old RX3 and rode over to CSC Motorcycles.  Steve has a very cool 1982 Yamaha Seca that he said I could ride, and I wanted to experience what it’s like to ride a nearly-40-year-old motorcycle, built during the Reagan Administration, with only 1700 miles on the clock.   I’ll have a story on that later (Spoiler Alert:  The RX3 is a nicer motorcycle).  For today, I grabbed a few photos of my RX3 and I wanted to talk about my bike and its decals a bit.

Restaurants, Baja Runs, and more…my RX3 wears its decals like campaign ribbons. In a very real sense, that’s exactly what they are.

My RX3 is one of the very first ones delivered to America when CSC starting importing the bikes, and the story behind that is well told (if I do say so myself) in 5000 Miles at 8000 RPM.  It’s orange, which became sort of a nice orange-yellow over the years, and I like the look.  I also like the look of a lot of decals.  I always thought that was a cool aspect of the whole ADV thing, telling folks where you’ve been and (with the help of a little artwork and adhesive) bragging about it a bit.   And my RX3 and I have covered a few miles.

My first big RX3 ride, and one of the things that I think put CSC and the RX3 on the map was the 2015 Baja Run (our first, and maybe a first in the motorcycle industry for a new bike introduction).   I didn’t know how that would go, I was nervous as hell that the bikes wouldn’t fare well, but my fears were unfounded. It was an incredible ride.  And, it was our first decal.  That’s the big round one you see just above the my saddle in the photo above.

Next up:  The Chinese and a couple of cool guys from Colombia wanted to come to the US and ride with us.   And I got to meet a cool guy named Joe Gresh, who Motorcyclist magazine sent to ride with us.  You need to read 5000 Miles At 5000 RPM to get the full story on that adventure tour, too.  It was grand.  Azusa to Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota, ride west across Wyoming, Idaho, and Washington, and then a turn left at the ocean to ride the western US coast back to So Cal.  The relevant point here is that ride made for a bitchin’ decal, which you can see in the photo below.

The Western America Adventure Ride. It was grand. 5000 miles, lots of bikes, and not a single breakdown. Gresh staged a burnout with his RX3 in Port Orford, Oregon…the burnout heard around the world. John Welker planned our stops and navigated for us. It was a magnificent ride.

Then we did a bunch more CSC Baja rides, and with each one came another decal.  Then I did a ride across China with Gresh on a couple of RX3s we borrowed from Zongshen (I wrote a book about that one, too).  Then it was a ride around the Andes Mountains in Colombia with my good buddies Juan (who was on ride across America with us) and Carlos, both supercool guys who took great care of me in Medellin, Barichara, Mompos, and a whole bunch of other magnificent Colombian destinations.  Yep, that resulted in yet another book.

Luggage decals…Mama Espinoza’s in El Rosario (incredible lobster burritos), BajaBound Mexican insurance (the best), and the Horizons Unlimited Rally in northern California.
My Chinese buddies gave me a Chinese flag to put on my bike, I had to add a US flag to show where my loyalties lie, and a decal good buddy Juan’s Colombian motorcycle magazine, DeMotos.com.co.

I could ask if you knew how many RX3 breakdowns I experienced in all those miles, but I know you already know the answer: Zero.

Yep, that little 250 has taken me to hell and back, and my RX3 just keeps running and running and running.   An added benefit?  Mine is orange (it’s the fastest color, Orlando).

And that brings us to now, and the latest decal to adorn my well-broken-in, trusty, faithful and fearless companion.   It’s the supercool ExhaustNotes.us decal, and it’s perfect on my RX3.

Joe Gresh had a magnificent idea in creating an ExhaustNotes.us decal. I had just enough real estate to add it to my RX3!

So there you have it.  Imagine that:  A motorcycle story on a motorcycle blog!  And there’s more motorcycle stuff in the pipeline.  Truth be told, I enjoyed my RX3 sprint this morning, and it helped me realize I need to ride it more.  Welker called me about Sturgis a couple of says ago.  That might be fun.  If I go, I’d do it on the RX3.  I’d forgotten just how magnificent a motorcycle the RX3 is.

Stay tuned, folks…there’s more coming!

Would you like your very own ExNotes decal?  Hey, sign up for our automatic email updates, and we’ll shoot a couple out to you!

They’re out there…

The ExNotes decals, thanks to the tireless efforts of Uncle Joe Gresh, are starting to pop up likes daisies after a Spring rain!

This just in from good buddy YooHoo Fred:

I received my Exhaust Notes blog sticker in the mail yesterday. It’s like how getting your name in the phone book felt years ago. I am humbled at being included in the select few to receive this honor. A hearty thanks to a couple of great Joes: Joe Gresh & Joe Berk for bestowing this honor upon a mere mortal like me.

And another from good buddy Terry…

Honors and privileges at such a young age! My long awaited and much anticipated Exhast Notes Stickers came in mail today! Joe Gresh Belen Wagner I can wait show this to all my motorcycle friends, get yours, too. See http://Exhaustnotes.us or see Joe Gresh!

None other than our good buddy Robert has an ExNotes decal on his Sporty…

And good buddy Carlos never leaves home without his overhead publicity…

Hey, be one of the cool kids!   Get your very own ExNotes decals!

Wild Conjecture: BMW R18 Concept

BMW’s R18 Concept is that rare thing in the motorcycle world: a BMW that doesn’t look like the contents of the junk drawer in your kitchen. Most of the GS series have a rubber band, plastic-handled corkscrew and expired AA batteries look about them. Cluttered and stolen-valor-military-ish, the big GS’s take a concerted effort to look at without smirking and feeling superior. Except for the very first ones. The early GS800 was much cleaner and actually was pretty good off road.

Concept bikes are a great way to get the reaction of the riding public without spending a bunch of money on a bike nobody likes. It’s smart to ask your customers first. Personally, I love the thing. It has a vibe that goes all the way back to the beginning of BMW. Back when they were still trying to kill us all.

The engine is huge and air-cooled because that’s what cruisers are supposed to be. Liquid cooling on a cruiser is a negative. Four cylinders on a cruiser is two too many. The whole point of a cruiser is laid back and relaxing. This is not to be confused with comfortable.

The seat on the R18 is a concession to the Brat trend that is slowly but surely vandalizing Honda’s entire production output from the 1970’s. I would prefer a dual seat more like the old R69 came with. It seems a waste for such a long bike to neglect the pillion accommodations. The long reach to the bars is another styling cue that will probably make it into production. Motorcyclists have proven time and time again that they will put up with any silly riding position as long as it makes them cool.

And you will be cool on the R18. It’s long and low and black, all these are good things to be. I hope the exposed driveshaft makes it past the product liability wonks at BMW. I like a dangerous spinning bit on a motorcycle.

The front end has about 1-inch of travel, generous for the cruiser segment. I hope BMW replicates that crazy-huge, aerodynamic skeleton key when they design the keyless proximity fob for this bike. Come to think of it all those keyless entry thingies are too big to fit in the skintight leather rockabilly pants you’ll be wearing on the R18. Maybe a plain old key would be better. The headlight nacelle looks great if a bit Royal Enfield Bullet-ish. Hey, that’s ok.

My biggest concern about the R18 is not the bike itself but the manufacturer. BMW puts entirely too many electronic doodads on their modern bikes. The excessive reliance on E-trickery to protect the rider from himself has created heavy motorcycles. BMW used to pride itself on lightweight motorcycles. It was in their advertisements! The damn things may be safer as long as they don’t land on you but reliability has suffered with the additional complexity.

Here’s hoping BMW can pull their heads out of their…ahem…you know, and build a strong, simple machine that won’t cost a fortune to buy or maintain because it would be a crime for such a pretty motorcycle to be restricted to Starbucks parking lots and BMW service centers.